


Crossfade

by inkpenny



Category: Oniisama E
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-08
Updated: 2013-06-08
Packaged: 2017-12-14 06:54:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/834011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkpenny/pseuds/inkpenny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nanako recovers. Post-series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crossfade

Mariko still doesn’t know where the doll is from and makes no effort to conceal her discomfort every time she sees it.

“I don’t know how you can stand it,” she says one day, painting Nanako’s nails as the two of them rest upon the floor. Nanako’s left hand lolls lazily against her knee as the peach-colored polish dries. (She still doesn’t think she has the temerity to pull off Mariko’s signature red, no many how many times Mariko has assured her of the contrary.) Meanwhile Mariko lies belly-down on the hardwood, swinging her legs absentmindedly as she fiddles with Nanako’s right hand.

“What do you mean?” Nanako asks innocently, though she can’t help the way the corner of her mouth quirks when Mariko’s eyes flit upward and her expression breaks into frustration.

“Nanako!”

Nanako can’t help but laugh, “Why does it bother you so much?”

“Oh, where to start?” Mariko fumes, rearranging herself so she can return to Nanako’s nails. Although, considering the intensity of Mariko’s boiling points, Nanako wonders if she will even have a hand by the time Mariko communicates the extent of her horror. “That vacant smile and those eyes—it’s like it’s always watching us.”

Nanako giggles at that, but even so, she can’t deny much of what Mariko has said. There used to be a part of her that cherished that about the doll—that same frighteningly plausible sentience that unsettled Mariko. It had made the most difficult months after Rei’s death more tolerable because she felt as though she wasn’t really alone. The doll had been something to cling to. In some ways Nanako wondered if she had become like Rei in that way; she remembered how unnerved she’d been wandering through that dark apartment for the first time, even though it had become a natural habitat for Saint-Just.

But it’s been years now, and the grief that once clogged Nanako’s chest and corroded her joints has begun to dissipate into something much lovelier—a staunch willingness to live again.

So she lets her gaze linger far longer than is appropriate on the way Mariko’s left ear musses the hair just above it, leaving little sprouts of black against her temple. Her violet skirt is uneven upon the floor and a sliver of lace peeks out as the hem inches up the skin of her thighs. Nanako swallows slowly, pacing herself like she’s just spun in twenty circles before she opens her mouth to speak.

“How odd. You always struck me as someone who enjoyed a good audience,” she says, her chest growing hot as Mariko’s eyes follow hers and she squeezes Nanako’s hand just a bit too tightly to be ignored.

“You’re terrible,” Mariko murmurs after a few beats, even as her red lips twitch and a blush creeps across her bone white face.


End file.
